Earlier, Shen Hao had already taken the risk of offending Tang Qingyuan to remind him not to take his current "acting position" too seriously. It’d be best just to go with the flow, keep up with the usual duties of the Thousand Households Station, and that way you don’t offend anyone.

At that time, Tang Qingyuan really felt a bit sour inside.

It was like someone coming up to you while you were still happy about your wife being pregnant, only to say: Don’t get too happy, the kid in her belly isn’t yours.

But Tang Qingyuan was an old hand who’d seen his share of ups and downs. He’d hit his peak young, then crashed, and climbed back up through luck and hard work, so he adjusted his mindset quickly—he could tell Shen Hao was speaking from the heart, with no hidden malice.

Thinking carefully, Tang Qingyuan had to admit that his path up the official ladder had been cut off long ago. No one above to pull him up, no one below to push, and the recent promotion to Deputy Thousand Households was only thanks to Shen Hao’s major achievement. With his age and cultivation potential, moving up to Senior Fifth Grade would take a miracle.

Yesterday, after that copper rod arrived, Tang Qingyuan completely let go of any unrealistic hopes. Just as Shen Hao had said, the only reason the higher-ups wanted him as "acting Chief Officer" was to force the other Deputy Thousand Households to show their allegiance. Tang’s foundation was shallow and he posed no threat—so what else was he if not a tool?

"Who do you think has the best chance to take over?"

Shen Hao shook his head. "That I honestly don’t know. But as long as you just keep laying low, depending on no one and offending no one, when all’s said and done your situation might even end up better than now."

"Oh? How do you figure?"

"No matter who finally gets the seat, the rest of the competitors aren’t going to end up well. With luck and connections, maybe they’ll get transferred to another Thousand Households Station. If they can’t, the new Chief Officer will definitely suppress them. But you, as the centrist, are someone to win over—they’ll definitely arrange you some real power, that won’t be an issue."

Tang Qingyuan’s eyes lit up at these words and he nodded repeatedly, apparently agreeing with Shen Hao’s analysis.

After clinking cups with Tang Qingyuan, Shen Hao was also calculating in his heart. He was looking forward to the arrival of the new Households Officer—no matter who it was, after Wu Changhe, this time it was bound to be someone from Jiang Cheng’s faction, meaning one of their own. In the future, Black Banner Battalion’s affairs shouldn’t be a mess of infighting like before.

They exchanged a few more words and knocked back another cup, then Lian Xiang’s song finished.

Shen Hao hadn’t been listening carefully, but he knew she’d just sung one of his lyrics; applause burst out in the main hall—partly because Lian Xiang sang beautifully, partly because she was performing Lord Shen’s lyrics. If you didn’t clap, you didn’t know how to behave.

Lian Xiang sang three songs in a row, then said she’d take a break and sat down beside Shen Hao.

Because today’s gathering was for a housewarming, not a flower banquet, the only woman present was Lian Xiang. So she didn’t drape herself over Shen Hao the way she might at Hong’en Hall, but sat properly for once. She offered formal congratulations and a toast, and even helped circulate among the tables.

Before leaving, Lian Xiang leaned close to Shen Hao’s ear and said, "It’s my birthday on the eighth of next month—can you come?"

Shen Hao was slightly startled, then nodded, and immediately felt a gentle touch on his cheek. As he turned dazedly, he saw Lian Xiang pursing her lips and trotting away.

"Lord Shen, you sure are lucky with women!"

"Shen, hurry up and strike while the iron’s hot—go all the way!"

"Hahahaha..."

The bold ones joined in the teasing, the timid ones could only chuckle along. Still, it was obvious to everyone that the Lian Xiang Songstress was into Lord Shen—otherwise would she have kissed him on the cheek before leaving? But what did she whisper in Lord Shen’s ear? Quite a few people were curious. Maybe she was inviting him to sneak in through her window tonight?

Tsk tsk, but no one dared to ask.

With Lian Xiang gone, the guys putting on a polite act dropped it too. Grabbing the wine jars, they started chugging. That suited the military-heavy style of Xuanqing Guard—most here drank like this. Lightweights like Wang Yiming and Wang Jian were few and far between. And Wuliangye was already considered strong liquor for these fellows—one jin and they were tipsy, two jins and they went wild.

They drank until early 9 p.m.; Shen Hao then called an end to the drinking, swapped out tea for the men to sober up, and invited people to his study.

The first ones in were Zhang Qian and Gan Lin. These two could hold their drink—just a bit below Shen Hao’s capacity. After drinking more than two but less than three jins, they were just pleasantly buzzed.

"How did it go, you two?" Shen Hao poured them each a cup of tea and cut straight to the point.

"You’re really on top of things. Here—this is what we found." Zhang Qian took a copper rod out of his storage bag, used his and Gan Lin’s waist tokens to open it, then handed it to Shen Hao.

Gan Lin explained from the side, "We put in a hell of a lot of effort to investigate this. There are forty-eight storage bags in the Jingxi Army Supply Battalion. Of those, thirty-one match the one-zhang-square capacity you described. Ten of those thirty-one were assigned to the various Thousand Households Stations. The records for them are clear, all by the book. And the sign-in and sign-out dates don’t match the end of November you wanted checked."

Zhang Qian picked up, "The other twenty-one storage bags are all still in the vaults. However, those twenty-one did get checked out around the end of November—over six days, from noon on November 29th to afternoon of December 5th. The reason given for checking them out was that the Ministry of War’s Magical Artifact Department took them for routine maintenance."

"But both of us have served in the main army—Zhang Qian was once a Hundred Households in Jingxi Army Supply Battalion. In his experience, magical artifacts are always serviced in March or April each year, never at the end of the year. At year’s end, everyone’s busy with official evaluations—who has the bandwidth to hold maintenance for those below? So this is suspicious."

Shen Hao studied the records on the copper rod as the two explained, and then, tapping a line on the rod, asked, "The timing matches, so you suspect there’s something off about the whereabouts of those twenty-one storage bags?"

"Exactly. We bought several rounds of drinks to fish for information, and finally heard that this so-called maintenance was just for show. The Hundred Households Officer in charge said that the bags came and went without any visible maintenance—a perfunctory wipe of grease on the outside, but not even the array runes were cleaned. He complained it must’ve been some higher-up’s harebrained scheme for the official evaluations."

As Shen Hao listened to Zhang and Gan’s report, he studied the text on the copper rod word by word, his frown deepening.